


But I know our filthy hands can wash one another’s

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Disabled Character, Developing Relationship, Disability, F/M, Future Fic, Missing Scene, Older Man/Younger Woman, POV Phil Coulson, POV Skye | Daisy Johnson, Romance, Skoulson Romfest 2k16, and i stole an old idea from my own fanfic for the last scene, but whatever it's my fic, lost of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 16:10:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5792092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They don't touch each other that much, so it means something when they do.</p><p>Skoulson RomFest 2k15: Day 5 - hands, guilt</p>
            </blockquote>





	But I know our filthy hands can wash one another’s

His hands feel strangely cold, considering she can clearly see him sweating, whatever that machine has been doing to him raising a fever out of him. He’s bruised and battered and Skye does not want to think about the kind of torture he’s endured. She took too long to find him. Ward has made her read the manual, she knows SHIELD agents are trained to endure torture. But _not Coulson_ , he shouldn’t have to endure this...

She took too long to find him. If only she had been quicker, smarter, stronger. If only she had been a proper agent. If only she had been honest with Coulson from the beginning maybe she wouldn’t be wearing this electronic bracelet, maybe she wouldn’t have taken so long.

She wants to say sorry for taking so long, for not finging him sooner. For letting him be in pain. Instead she says “come back” and presses her mouth against his knuckles.

 

+

 

He doesn’t want to touch her when she is asleep and can’t tell him that it’s all right to do so. But at some point of the long night of her recover - Simmons explaining the details of tissue regeneration, and at _that_ speed and how it was safer to keep her sedated until the process finished - the machines that tell him she’s okay (for now, because of what he did Skye will always be okay _for now_ and he’ll never know when the other shoe will drop) are not enough. He needs to feel her alive.

Her pulse feels so quiet and peaceful when he presses his thumb to her wrist. Maybe this is okay, Coulson tells himself, holding her hand properly, pressing the pads of his fingers to her palm, the _life_ line. He recalls after he told her what Lumley had said about her origins - how he tried to comfort her by holding her hand while the plane dropped, and how Skye hadn’t seemed to acknowledge his touch at first, but then he kept looking at her face and saw it soften a bit, like in relief, and her lips curled in a way that looked like gratitude.

He remembers and maybe it’s okay if he holds her hand again, even if she is asleep.

It surprises him when she begins to stir awake, a couple of hours after this decision, without warning. So much that at first he thinks something must be wrong ( _something’s wrong and it’s my fault, what did I do to you?_ ) and not that Skye is just waking up. Skye winces before she even opens her eyes, doubling her body slightly under the covers, the area where she got shot obviously hurting her now ( _did I do this?_ ). It only lasts a moment and then she relaxes.

Coulson tries to pull his hand away but Skye grips it first. He’s not sure she knows she’s doing it, though; she holds on to him too tight to be a gesture that is Skye-like, she might be acting on instinct. Whatever it is, Coulson squeezes her hand back.

“I’m here,” he says, hoping his voice is one tenth of effective to quiet the pain as Skye’s voice was when he got kidnapped and she found him, brought him back.

“I’m here too,” she says, her voice raspy and low and shocked. “How is that possible?”

“Skye…”

She turns her head and finally opens her eyes. He unintentionally squeezes her hand harder when he finally sees her eyes, after what seems like weeks instead of a couple of days.

“Coulson… _why_ am I still here?”

 

+

 

She sees people hesitating to touch her afterwards. It shouldn’t make her heart shrink the way it does, and it shouldn’t make her jaw ache in a strange way that means it takes Skye forever to realize she’s been clenching it all this time.

It shouldn’t because she hesitates too, touching people, it scares her. Too relieved when she hugged Fitz but then afterwards - the way Jemma’s and Doctor Garner’s worried touches provoked a quiet panic in her stomach. What if she contaminated them too? What if the same thing that happened to Trip happens to them? The other nightmares, the one she wouldn’t tell Andrew, were all about something like this. She would be with the team, having a drink, talking, even laughing, and she’d thoughtless touch one of them and they’d turn to stone and then crumble and disappear.

She wonders if Coulson hesitates, too. 

He has never been the most touchy of people (it means something, an extra something, when he does something like hug her, take her hand, touch her face) so she can’t tell outright. He wasn’t there when she woke up after passing out in Wisconsin. He doesn’t touch her when he comes to tell her they need to take a ride (she’s joking about Old Yeller, she knows Coulson would never do anything bad to her, not even now that she’s a monster). When he gives her the twizzlers their fingers don’t brush.

When the Quinjet touches down Skye tries to grab at least one of the bags - they’re too many for Coulson to carry into the cabin.

“What are you doing?” Coulson demands, rushing to stop her.

“It’s okay, I can handle a couple of bags,” she says. She feels crappy enough that she can’t help with missions right now.

“You broke your fingers,” he says, gritting his teeth a bit. “Come on.”

He wraps his hands around Skye, carefully undoing her grip on the bag, carefully pressing his thumb across her fingertips until she lets go.

Skye stands there, watching Coulson gather all their things and throw her bag over his shoulder. She breathes.

He didn’t hesitate.

She didn’t feel panic.

 

+

 

His whole body tenses even before she touches him.

(it feels _intimate_ , like Rosalind, and not like her)

The way she touches his gloved hand too, like a statement.

He rejects her.

He knows she has to keep her out or he won’t be able to steel himself to do what he has to do, what he should have done a long time ago. If he let Daisy in he will never be strong enough to mine his grief and anger. Strong enough to _stop_ Ward before there’s another body.

The way he talks to her in the interrogation room - Coulson wouldn’t blame her for never trying to comfort him again.

And he wants it, desperately. Her touch, when he can accept it. He only remembers it afterwards, when Ward is dead. He remembers how Daisy paused a moment before touching her, and how warm and soft and all the things that were keeping him human. He wonders if she could make him feel like that again, after what he’s done. She and Mack help him and Fitz out of that portal and as they make their ascent to the Zephyr One it’s all Coulson wants, to go back to that moment a day ago and accept what she was offering. It’s all he wants, to feel her fingers on his hand again.

But it’s too late. 

Daisy doesn’t try to comfort him this time.

 

+

 

She can barely stand the way his fingers run a line along the bruise on her neck. It’s careful and almost devotional, but it’s too weighted down by guilt. She feels a bit sick when his vibrations hit her, and that’s only a chunk of what he is feeling.

“Coulson,” she says, stopping him, grabbing his fingers in her hand and pulling them away, but not letting go. “It’s over.”

“I know but you’re-”

“No. I took care of him - _it_. It’s done.”

I did it for you, she thinks.

She lets go of his hand.

Coulson repeats the gesture, the length of his fingers slipping slowly from her collarbone to the purple-ish area where the Inhuman grabbed her. Coulson’s touch is lighter this time, as if he had shed a heavy weight. No guilty this time. Daisy pushes against his fingers. It hurts a bit but the remainder will fade in a few days, she lets out a tiny moan-like noise at the touch, because it feels good just a little bit, too, despite the discomfort, and the good part will only get better from now on.

 

+

 

He knows she’s noticed, she’s not stupid.

The first couple of times they have been together have been very - dramatic, impulsive. Coulson is still not sure they’re going to last. He’s never been one to start on a passionate note like this; he prefers things that start with humble expectations. He’s used to compromise when choosing partners. He’s not sure _choice_ is the right word here. When it comes to Daisy he feels like he doesn’t have one, in a lot of ways. Maybe that’s just passion, and he forgot what that felt like.

The first couple of times they have been together have been painfully perfect, so different to any sexual encounter he’d had before, and Coulson didn’t want to draw attention to his prosthetic, break the illusion for Daisy. It couldn’t be a nice feel for her.

But on the third night when he tries to draw his hand away she grabs his wrist, pinning him against the mattress. She digs her fingers into the fabric of his glove.

“Daisy.”

He would feel terrible if he believes she is doing this just to appease him, comfort him.

“Stop it,” she says. Then softer: “Please stop it.”

She brings his hand between her breasts, drawing his index down her stomach.

“If you don’t want to touch me with the prosthetic, that’s fine, I’ll respect that,” she says. “But if you want to touch me but you think I’ll be put off then… _please, stop_.”

She lets his hand go.

Coulson hesitates, then he tentatively wraps his fingers around the top of her thigh. His prosthetic is not sensitive beyond warmth and shapes but it’s always good to be touching Daisy. He tells himself it can’t last, all this hunger and love. Daisy closes her eyes and presses her leg back up against the touch, brushing herself across Coulson’s stomach, he feels her arousal against his skin. How can this be a choice? Why would she _choose_ this?

She covers his left hand with hers, keeping it there, pressed against her thigh, as she sinks into him and rides him slow. She doesn’t let go of it through it all, until she comes and she entwines their fingers together, digging into the hard metal of his palm and Coulson is able to feel _that_ clearly.

 

+

 

He has old man’s hands - no, wait she doesn’t mean that in a bad way, _at all_.

His hands, or, well, the one, the one she is holding in hers now as she rests her head on the inside of his arm, as she draws her thumb across the palm and as she turns it over to examine his knuckles, his hands are different. She becomes fascinated with the intimacy of them, because with Coulson there has always been this distance. Not distance. Maybe boundary. Even when they were emotionally close. 

She loves his hand, actually, the solidity of it, the way it searches for her even in Coulson’s sleep, the way it holds her but loosely in her sleep, always giving her a way out. It’s callused by training and fighting, and wrinkled by age (that’s what she meant, not that his hands were old, just nice and seasoned and she felt she could trust them). Softer than you would expect. She loves drawing her index through the dark layer of his hair, she loves pressing her face against it when she falls asleep on his arm.

His beautiful hands, Daisy thinks with ache, one of them gone, the hand she didn’t get to touch like this, the hand she didn’t get to kiss like she is kissing this other hand now, her lips pressed against the line of love, hoping that makes up for it a bit, knowing it was all her fault.

“Don’t do that,” he says.

“What?”

“Don’t think about that,” he says, pushing the hair off her face with his prosthetic.

She quirks an eyebrow, “What? Are you the one with powers now?”

“No,” he says, quietly. “But I’m the person who has spent the better part of three years looking at the expressions on your face.”

Daisy smiles. That’s quite the confession.

Coulson disentangles his right hand from her grip. He touches the wrist on his prosthetic.

“I don’t regret it,” he says, rubbing his fingers around the material. “I would do the same today.”

Daisy turns around completely, pressing her knee against Coulson’s hip, looking at his expression; she’s also spent the best part of three years looking at him, they have that in common. Sometimes she still can’t make him out.

“Of course you would do the same,” she tells him. “Because that’s what you do, save people.”

Coulson drops his gaze.

“Not just because of that,” he adds. “If I hadn’t lost my hand I would be a different person today.”

Daisy gives him a questioning look.

“Maybe I wouldn’t be here,” he explains.

“Oh.” She doesn’t know what to say. That’s an even bigger confession. Coulson is not one for putting things into words (she’s not stupid, she knows how he feels), normally. So this is - _uh_.

“Yeah.”

He drops his head to kiss her, sliding the prosthetic hand up her neck, touching the gloved fingers to her cheek.

“I don’t regret it,” he says. “Don’t regret it yourself.”

And she feels ashamed for it, but she doesn’t.

 

+

 

“No, like, with the whole team.”

He knows the photographer wants a picture just with her but this is Daisy, she won’t let teamwork go unnoticed. And she won’t back away, once she’s decided this is how things should be done.

Coulson didn’t know the public relations side of saving the world from a Kree invasion was this tiresome.

“And our fearless Director, of course,” she says when he thought he could duck out of it, grabbing his arm and giving him a smirking smile, like saying _you’re not going anywhere_. “He should be in it, too.”

He makes a soft groaning noise while she guides him to a spot between her and Joey, who beams at him but also goes stiff in the photograph like this is one year ago and he’s still scared of the big and stern Director. Mack takes the place to Daisy’s right (her right hand, _always_ ) and Agent Rodriguez next to him, giving the photographer her “good side”, she says.

Coulson doesn’t really like the spotlight - he spent years trying to become invisible to carry out SHIELD’s missions, it’s an habit to want to stay in the shadows - and he feels a bit bad about taking attention away from her and her team, but this is important for Daisy, to have her here, in her first magazine cover. Not the last one, he’s pretty sure.

The first proper photograph of the heroes after the battle, and that has some resonance. Coulson realizes this is a historic moment (because he knows Daisy is going to go on to even bigger achievements) so he approaches with that solemnity, taking that place besides Daisy, but a step behind her too, that’s important.

He thinks it’s a pity history and this photograph won’t register this: the way Daisy, as they pose together slips her arm behind Coulson with familiarity and shoves her hand into his, lacing their fingers together, tightly, and even though no one seeing the picture will ever know this detail, even if this is not _history_ , Coulson thinks it makes a difference, that the photograph looks different for it, and their happy, proud, mischievous faces surely do.


End file.
